Diet
for IBS Pain in Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Diet does not help all
people suffering with IBS pain (irritable bowel syndrome) - however, when it is
playing a role its effect can be profound. People report it helping with a
variety of uncomfortable symptoms including stomach pain after eating, gurgling
stomach, bloating, wind, bowel pain, constipation symptoms. looseness and colon
pain. It can help where symptoms look like lactose intolerance symptoms in IBS.
Because the IBS diet it is not the same for every diet-affected person, and
because diet does not help everyone, some doctors may say diet has no role in
IBS. In addition, sometimes people report that they are sure of a food reaction
on one occasion but it does not happen every time they eat that food. But dieticians
doing research at RPAH in Sydney and my own clinical work has shown that IBS
symptoms improve on the diet and return when suspect foods are re-introduced.
Indeed, so central is IBS to food sensitivity, that it can be a diagnostic aid.
That is, if a family (including grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and
children) has members, which have headaches, IBS and eczema, then there is a
strong likelihood that members of the family are food sensitive, and thus that
use of the Diet Detective Investigation will improve the problem.
There are many conditions
which have specific diets. We are all familiar with the gluten free diet for
coeliacs, the lactose intolerance diet for, diets for weight control, and for
coronary heart disease. Diet management for food sensitivity symptoms is
different. It is more like allergy where everyone has their own allergies.
Unfortunately however, there are no helpful tests which show that a person is
food-sensitive! Diet therapy begins with the exclusion of all the foods that
you already suspect. In addition there is a need to consider what I call
"the layer underneath". These are foods known to cause reactions from
clinical research but are much less likely to be a problem on their own. Small
amounts of these foods add up so the likelihood of a reaction when the usual
suspect foods are eaten is much greater. You can use the diet detective method
to design your own Family Elimination Diet. It considers only the
additives, food chemicals and foods that are known to be suspect from the
research and adds that to those foods considered suspect from the family
sensitivity history. Additionally you can decide how strict you want it to
be: easy to manage or stricter to get good results, or very careful. Then you
do challenges to show if diet symptoms do return with food reintroduction. If
symptoms return you then test individual foods and additives to develop your
own diet made up of all the foods you do not react to and occasional ones you
have only mild reactions to. This allows you to manage in the real world where
you want to eat with others as normally as possible and have outings.
In babies food caused
tummy problems are called colic, in children they are called tummy aches, in
the teens they are often called abdominal migraine, or spastic colon, and in
adults irritable bowel syndrome. They rarely happen continuously. Babies may
grow out of colic. Tummy aches or abdominal migraine may gradually fade out,
and IBS often does not begin until well into adulthood. The name may change but
where food sensitivity is present diet will have a role in all of them. It is
interesting to note that adults with IBS report that the many symptoms that
form their particular IBS may all change in varying amounts. These include gut
pain, bloating, wind, gut urgency [sometimes with faintness], need to recover
after toileting, diarrhoea or constipation, explosive motions, strong smelling
wind or motions, and reflux.
Diet is a natural cure
for IBS pain. Because diet is a natural IBS treatment, it does not have any
side effects and does not interfere or interact adversely with any other
medication you need to have.
Each patient has their
own particular cluster of symptoms - often IBS will be accompanied by other
food-sensitivity symptoms like headaches, eczema and moodiness. A bonus of this
diet detective work is that people regularly report improvements in other
symptoms. They report their mood as calmer, no longer waking as often, or after
having bad dreams, and decreased body odour, and less fuzzy thinking.
One interesting fact
about food sensitive people with IBS pain is that they often have a very good
sense of smell, particularly of stale food in the refrigerator. I remember one
patient remarking "When I can smell milk that is "off" to me and
I give it to my mother, she just can't smell it!" While they can be seen
as "fussy" by relatives or work mates, this sensory sensitivity is in
fact very useful. When present, it means that you can detect changes that mean
amines are increasing in the food. For non-food-sensitive people, some amine
changes are not a problem - they may enjoy the "aged" or
"matured" taste in wines or cheeses. But food-sensitive people should
trust their noses, and not eat any food that smells bad to them. For more
details of this interesting phenomenon, see the article on
"Supertasters" and "Supersmellers" in the Chapter on
Understanding food sensitivity in Are You Food sensitive?
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Sal_Rosenberg/831876
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